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Published: October 29th 2018
After a wonderful night’s rest in our comfy, squishy bed, we were up and going for a 9:25 AM departure. The walk-around for our means of transportation went fine. Oh, no! We have a problem. I can’t find my new pair of favorite sunglasses. Not the end of the world, though cause I have 18 other pair with me. But...these were my new favorites. Cory checked in the KOA office - nope! He even stopped at Edna’s Kitchen for Classic Dining - nope, again. Don’t fuss...I’ll live. Lulu wishes she could hug me but alas, no arms. C’est la vie. Later in the day, Cory found my lost sunglasses in my pocketbook. Oh, thank you, thank you, dear Buckeroo. I love you!
At 10:05, we arrived in Georgia. We let out a quick burst of ?”Geor...Ja”? as Ray Charles would have sung it. Stopped for gas .....guess where? At another Flying J!! Whaaaat? Now Cory tells me that Flying J and Pilot are one in the same cause one bought the other out. No way, Jose! He showed me his Good Sam’s gas card that has both Flying J and Pilot on it...doesn’t mean they are the same....just means you
can use it at either. Nope....he won’t budge. He knows. He told me to Google it! That’s the new answer for everything....but it is good. Our daughter, Lory, taught us “Google is your friend.” She is right! But we still don’t like a Flying J, Cory....remember all the issues we have had at them. Fortunately, this visit was fine.
At noon, we entered Florida! Hallelujah! We definitely stopped promptly at their big welcome center. Remember how Cory drove right past it last year? We all squealed and screamed but that didn’t change the price of beans. Mr. C just keeping going...and going and going. Rats! Now, we have waited almost a year to stop here again. Hooray! It’s a grand day in Florida. The sun is shining and the weather is nice & warm. I’ve removed my winter jacket and mittens. Life is good!
But wait.....what now?? Some guy is saying Florida is Closed! Are you kidding me? We don’t think it’s funny at all. Once we explained to him that we had a reserved site in Florida plus suffered through a body search (I know some of you were uncomfortable with that but we had no choice),
they let us in. Jeepers. Of course, I picked up the usual 75 brochures and Cory drank the orange juice at this magnificent Welcome Center. He also bought a new Sunpass for our car windshield. Remember we have a new car (that looks just like our old one) and the Sunpass sticker we had on the old car crumbled when he took it off. This Sunpass is a removable one. That will work! Lulu posed for pictures of course.
As we merrily skipped (not really cause remember I can’t skip) back to the RV, I said to Cory to walk down the driver’s side of our unit. We have a new rattle up near his seat. OMG! Whaaaat has happened now? Are you kidding!?! Unbelievable! This must be a dream...or rather a nightmare! We must be strong. Lulu collapsed next to the RV...easy to do: no legs. As I looked at the side of our motor home, I immediately noticed something very wrong. Coreeeey, Coreeeey.....look here! Quickly! Our outside door panel that covers the igniter for our hot water heater was Gone!! Yes, gone...nowhere to be seen....just gone....missing! But gone where? Cory looked around our RV and even in
the big waste-can thinking someone had taken it off. Nothing! This small door doesn’t have a key lock, just a little knob to turn. It was there for our walk-around at the KOA. When Cory got gas, he’s sure it was there then. So, folks....somewhere in Georgia our little metal door is lying flat. Hopefully, when it came off it didn’t hit any car, etc. behind us. We had no clue. Heard nothing. My dash cam is recording our entire trip but only what is ahead of us. So much good that does us. After we settled down and licked our wounds, we decided it could have been so much worst. Which is true. We’ll just have to order a new one and have it sent to us. Just a minor glitch in our travels. We’re fine and Lulu has recovered.
At 2:45, Cory stopped at a rest stop off I-75. Brief stop. Got back on the highway and within minutes, our sirens were going off. Loud bells and whistleS. Are you kidding!?! OMG. Help! Noooooooo. He managed to get our looooong unit to the roadside best he could....it was like being in a boat on the rough seas
Noooooooo! Are you kidding!?!
Our outside heater door is missing! Gone! Gone! with all the rocking from the speeding vehicles going pass. The alarm said we are overheated!! Shouldn’t be but Bucky is checking it out now. Good grief, Charlie Brown, what next? Cory struggled terribly trying to get the radiator cap off....I even tried....no luck. Lulu even volunteered but no arms so it was only the thought that counted. Finally, with much elbow grease, he got the dumb cap off. Whew. The coolant fluid was down some so he added more coolant to it. He also added a bottle of oil to the oil receptacle. A Florida Road Ranger came by and stopped. He used his special truck arrow light to get the traffic to move over. Some did, some didn’t. He was super nice and helped us a bit....Cory said he could do it himself.....his ancestry kicking in? The Road Ranger’s name was Travis and he was originally from Cortland, NY. A distance from our homestead but not too much. Lulu loved him instantaneously. “Hold me, Hold me” she whispered in his ear. He did! We tipped him.
We got back on the highway at 3:30 PM. Thank heavens we planned to take it slow and easy (not doing
Noooooooo! Are you kidding!?!
Our alarm says our rig is overheated. too well on that last part) ....but the slow is correct - we have gone slow! I know all of you were nervous and shaken....it makes us have tingling in our fingers, too. But after these many years of driving this baby, we’ve come to expect the unexpected. Kind of like being in an ER.....you never know what’s coming through the door. We have only needed to be towed once. You have to remember, we our driving our 2008 house on a truck chassis while towing a car. ANYTHING can happen. If it doesn’t for some very lucky reason, we holler out “Yippee ki yay” at the top of our lungs. Lulu really belts it out! No “Yippee ki yay” this trip. We’ll check the RV over once at Tropical Palms and see if it needs any further attention and then go from there. Put us on your prayer chain. It seems to help.
Just keep going...Just keep going and get us to our campground in Wildwood, Florida.
Oh, yes....something I wanted to check on. I can see most of you are still traveling with us but it looks like some of you have jumped overboard. Was my
monster, mega blog too overwhelming? Did you think that all of the blogs were going to be like that? Are you just bored with them already and said “Enough of this crap!” What is it? I can tell how many read my blogs and the numbers don’t reflect our entire group at all. I have published the mega blog, the one just before we left and now this one which will be #4 of our actual blog journey .... total of 6 blogs. I hope no one fell off like our hot water heater door. I hope we didn’t leave any one behind at a gas station, campground or rest area. You can remove yourself from my travel list by hitting on a spot on the blog page. We shall miss you if you do. But, those of you who decide to hang out with us.....so very glad to still have you aboard. Lulu loves each of you and thinks of you as her best friend forever......BFF!
Traffic came to a real slow down around Gainesville and Ocala. We just creeped along for miles. It was because of very heavy traffic in these areas. Our temperature gauge stayed okay.....whew!
At 5:10 PM, we finally arrived at the Wildwood RV Village Campground (a Good Sam Campground). The woman had just closed the office but she reopened it to check us in. Good and thank you.
We are in a nice spot just a few sites down from where we stayed last year. Hey.....look! The little lady that we met last year is walking past our RV. I found the picture I took of her and Lulu this past January to show her....she laughed and loved it. Of course, I took another photo now of she and Lulu plus her cat. Such a small world....but she lives here full time so she’s always here.
We decided to hike out of the campground to a Wendy’s across the big, busy highway. No sense making Cory unhook our car after all he’s been through today - and you, too. We put our lives on the line and fled across the killer road as fast as we could go. Lulu was in her carry bag.....she can’t run (no legs). Had a tasty meal. There was a Pilot Truck/RV/Car gas station back across the death speedway. Again, we put our “motors” in
gear and zoomed to the other side. Phew! Made it, again....ALIVE! Cory had been carrying our full refill drink from Wendy’s. Before going in the store, I had him place it outside on top of an ice machine...no one would bother with it there. He bought another jug of coolant and another one of oil. Whaaaaat? Tell me it’s not true? Are you kidding!?! Attached to this store was one of our most favorite restaurants: Steak n’ Shake. Noooooo. If we could have thrown up we would have and gone in there and eaten again. Rats! And we would never have had to cross the death defying racetrack. Oh, well. C’est la vie.
We dragged our depressed selves out of the store. OMG! Nooooooo! Not this! Are you kidding!?! What more?? Someone took our drink from it’s safe location. How bad is that? Our low can you get? Who is that desperate or mean? How would they know if we had oral herpes or not? How did they know it wasn’t urine? How did they know we didn’t backwash in it? How?? You tell me! Slime bags - that’s what they are! #$&//+%@! We’ll get over it. Plenty of
drinks in our RV.....but it’s the principle of the thing.
We pushed and plodded ourselves to get back to the RV. All these trying times are starting to wear on us. Lulu has had it! She just keeps moaning.
Yeah! Made it back to our site. Look, Cory....what’s this? Here on our doorstep was a $1.00 bill. Wow! From where or from whom? The person who stole our drink maybe?? Trying to cleanse their conscience? I doubt it. However, we look upon this gift as a turn of fate for us. We are back on a positive note. “Good things come to those who wait.” It took all day of waiting but we have ended on a good note. Yippee.
Tomorrow’s goal: arrive at Tropical Palms. We only hope and pray that we make it there with no more untoward incidents. Enough is enough. See you in the morning. Get some rest!
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Karen Cooper McKean
non-member comment
Love your blogs! I returned from Smethport yesterday. My trip wasn't near as interesting. Safe travels and enjoy the sunshine.